If you want to play a rally game on PC or consoles there is one series that currently tops all others: Codemasters‘ DiRT games. When DiRT 2 saw a release in 2009 it was met with great reviews and good feedback. With DiRT 3, Codemasters is attempting to take the realism up another notch.

If you plan on delivering a realistic rallying experience, then there’s no better person to test it than a reall rally driver. So Codemasters got Kris Meeke, 2009 IRC rally champion to come along and put the game through its paces.

The setup was a little more expensive and unique than your typical gamer at home with a standard controller. The game was rendered across three displays, and Meeke decided he wanted to race with a manual clutch and a H-pattern gear shifting using a custom D-Box motion gaming platform. It sounds like a racing gamer’s dream control setup to us. You can see him seated on the motion platform while playing (bottom right corner).

The stage Meeke raced was the Kenya Sprint Rally in the MG Metro 6R4. The video shows his first attempt at the course. Taking that into account, and the fact he didn’t have a co-pilot shouting out the track information to him, he did a great job and showed the game off really well.

What matters most in racing games is the speed and control feedback. DiRT 3 seems to have both, but matches it with some fantastic visuals. We also can’t forget about the all new Gymkhana mode previewed back in December last year. If you get bored of the dirt race tracks then Gymkhana opens up some pupose-built arenas full of obstacles and jumps to navigate. Codemasters describe it as a “rally-like freestyle stunt driving discipline”.

Anyone wanting to play DiRT 3 doesn’t have too long to wait. Codemasters has set a release date of May 24 across Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.